


Could Do Better

by Euphoric_Mandelbulb



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Adverbs Galore, Angst and Humor, Breakups, Deception, F/M, Infidelity, Other, Probably Pretentious Prose, Sophisticated Vocabulary, schemes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-01-13
Packaged: 2018-03-07 11:40:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3172846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Euphoric_Mandelbulb/pseuds/Euphoric_Mandelbulb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of an ending.</p><p>Major spoilers for “Limerick”. Minor spoilers for “Fitton”, “Ottery St Mary”, and all of Series 2.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Could Do Better

**Author's Note:**

> One of my first attempts to write something non-comedic, so it's probably come out melodramatic/parodic/glib. And it seemed like such a good idea when I thought it up – I could clearly hear and picture the second-to-last scene, it was such beautifully understated drama... and I simply can't do it justice in mere written words. So annoying.
> 
> I REALLY hope that I've got Helena's voice right here...
> 
> NB: according to John Finnemore (on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JohnFinnemore/status/452501813645025280), Douglas has two daughters and the older one is called Verity. Since “truth” is not something with which Douglas is especially chummy, I decided to name his younger daughter after another concept equally unfamiliar to him...
> 
> Not beta'd, because I have no beta :-( Did not need Britpicking, because I *am* British :-)

** ***POST- _FITTON_ *** **

  
Silence prevailed in the Richardson sitting-room for several seconds.  
  
“Why?” Douglas eventually settled on as his first question.  
  
Helena grimaced, considering how best to phrase her answer. “Dougie -”  
  
Douglas raised an eyebrow.  
  
“... _Douglas_ , I... I fell in love with you because you were _spectacular_. So witty, so daring... so _exciting_. And... that's actually become the _problem_. Sometimes, you can be a bit _too_ exciting. When you get carried away – _especially_ when you're angry. You overshoot fascinating, end up rather _alarming_. It's happened more often since you've been dry -”  
  
“You want me to start _drinking_ again?!” Douglas said in disbelief.  
  
“ _No_ . Absolutely not, that was _so_ much worse – drink made you a slow, stupid facsimile of yourself, and a moody old bastard the next day. But... it always seemed to me that you drank _in order_ to slow yourself down, because otherwise you couldn't satisfy that amazing mind. Nowadays you stick to your... _schemes_ to occupy yourself, but you need them to be that much more convoluted. And most of the time, the _bizarre_ situations your mad little airline gets into are enough to fulfil your plotting needs, but when it's too calm you end up doing the strangest things... such ridiculous, inexplicable, _reckless_ things, Douglas, and that _frightens_ me. You've been attacked and arrested _so_ many times, _fired_ once -”  
  
“How many _more_ times are you going to bring that up?! I was _drunk_ when I stitched those kimonos into my jacket – I'd _never_ botch something like that these days -”  
  
“You're missing the point - you still _do things_ like that! You'll jeopardise _anything_ to beat your boredom. One of these days, Douglas Richardson, that's going to kill you. And I don't know whether I can face watching that.”  
  
Douglas looked pensive. “So... what does _he_ have that _I_ don't?”  
  
“Wh- _Who_?”  
  
“Your _Tai Chi teacher_.” Douglas pronounced the words as though they described some revoltingly twisted criminal practise.  
  
Helena began to protest, but realised that Douglas was _not_ going to discuss his own failings today, gave in and answered his question. “He's _balanced_.”  
  
“To be expected...”  
  
“... I suppose I was asking for that.” She considered her next words carefully. “He's stable. He manages to be interesting, clever, accomplished and so on, but he never goes over-the-top – he doesn't have your pathological aversion to boredom, _or_ need to prove his superiority.”  
  
“I don't need to _prove_ my superiority, it's self-evident -”  
  
“What a load of utter _codswallop_. You've been pretending to be Captain for _eight years_. Ever since you were fired, being superior is all you have left, so you can't bear to admit _anything_ which might make you seem even slightly less than the best at _everything_!”  
  
“Just you _watch_. My humility shall be _impeccable_ -”  
  
“This is _precisely_ my _point_!”  
  


** ***PRE- _HELSINKI_ TO POST- _JOHANNESBURG_ *** **

  
Much as Douglas appreciated the vast entertainment potential offered by MJN's typical clients, (lack of) luck and unobservant fellow crew, he nonetheless tried to exercise a _modicum_ of restraint over the next few months.  
  
He refrained from involving himself in any of the many altercations in the Sink of Hell, winding-up the most temptingly neurotic passengers they'd ever flown (Passenger Derby did _not_ count as a wind-up), or pushing his luck (and Mr Sergeant's temper) _overly_ far during the SEP refresher course – he even _gave in_ to Carolyn and jumped into a freezing pool, rather than soundly trouncing that jumped-up little red-faced R Lee Ermey wannabe in a one-sided battle of wits.  
By his standards, truly _heroic_ restraint.  
  
  
And then, the day before little Liberty's birthday, Carolyn announced that they would be taking a franking machine to Paris tomorrow afternoon and any pilot who was absent for any reason less pressing than _death_ would be fired.  
  
No amount of protesting, bargaining, or even – a sign of his true desperation – _pleading_ would change her mind: something had evidently put her into full battleaxe mode, though he couldn't trick her into revealing what (and Arthur was, as ever, clueless).  
  
Some little gauge in Douglas went so far into the red that the needle was trying to break the peg, and next thing he knew G-ERTI was opposite where she ought to be with a sugar brick ( _not_ part of the plan... bloody English weather) falling from her air-brake cavity. He'd even managed to get _Martin_ involved in this caper (preying unashamedly on the awkward, lonely young man's emerging desperation to _join in_ , to _get along with people –_ in short, to be liked).  
  
  
He did _try_ not to let on to Helena that he'd slipped up. But after the interminable sorry saga of the Johannesburg trip, he found that explaining his physical and mental states upon his return entailed explaining _why_ MJN had needed to be even more parsimonious than usual – and Helena always could tell when he was outright fabricating.  
  
Surprisingly, she seemed to take it very calmly. In retrospect, he really should have known by this point that this was not a good sign.  
  


** ***POST- _KUALA LUMPUR_ *** **

  
He'd just pulled off his most complex scheme of the year, stunning even himself with his ability to predict and manipulate his colleagues' behaviour. (The bit about “our third anniversary” had been a particularly nice touch: Martin might not have kept quiet had he known that the Flap and Throttle had been set up less than a month ago.)  
  
Perhaps, Douglas mused, he _would_ have succeeded as a professional confidence trickster after all... but, at the time the decision had presented itself, an _ordinary_ career with a consistent income seemed more likely to keep Verity provided-for, and so that was his choice. _Anything_ for his daughters' benefit – even boredom and tedium, much as they pained him: after Herc was promoted, there hadn't even been any First Officers at Air England both willing to play word games during the flight _and_ worth playing against, let alone any who would tease _actual_ passengers, even for money (or food). Irritating as Martin was, he did at least have perpetual desperation (and near-total inability to accept defeat) to make him tolerable... and, Douglas would reluctantly admit, _some_ sense of humour (when the stick could be extracted from his colon).  
  
  
Repressing the urge to boast of today's victory was threatening to cause Douglas some sort of internal injury, but he reminded himself sternly that Helena _didn't_ like his most daring and impressive accomplishments after all. He must keep his pride and exhilaration to himself, for her sake – for _their_ sake.  
  
As he repeated this admonishment for the fifth time, he turned onto his driveway to find Helena's car already in its parking-space, two hours earlier than she usually returned from work.  
Helena herself was trying to cram a box into the already-packed boot... and _someone_ was sitting in the passenger seat. A tall, broad-shouldered someone.  
  
Douglas parked calmly in his own space, and nonchalantly climbed out to face Helena. She quickly masked her initial guilty expression with a defiant glare; he met her eyes impassively.  
  
“So,” he said eventually, “I take it that slow and steady has won the race?”  
  
“I'm sorry, Douglas, I just can't...” Helena once again searched for a tactful way to phrase her explanation, and this time failed. “I just _can't_. You're terrifying.”  
  
She turned hurriedly away from his unflinching gaze, strapped the last box into her car's back seat, then stepped round to the driver's door.  
  
“I hope we can remain friends,” she said tentatively, apparently by way of farewell.  
  
“Goodbye, Helena,” Douglas replied firmly.  
He stood aside as her car pulled out, then headed into the house without looking back. His stance remained firm, his shoulders straight, his head unbowed. He was the very picture of cold indifference.  
  
  
Some hours later, Mike and Sam from next door unexpectedly rang his doorbell. Apparently, they'd been enjoying the piano “recital” but would now rather like to be able to sleep, as they needed to get up for work in six hours' time.  
  


** ***MID- _LIMERICK_ *** **

  
He'd hoped that the whole Tai Chi Teacher débâcle would resolve without major incident and could remain undisclosed, but now even he had to admit that he'd failed for once in his life.  
  
So, when Martin innocently asked _that_ question, Douglas considered the pros and cons as he gauged Martin's intentions: there'd be weeks of mockery to endure, all the worse once Carolyn joined in, but that would only be amplified by each further day of concealment before they inevitably learnt the truth.  
  
To be honest, it'd be a relief to finally _tell_ someone (a rare situation indeed for Douglas Richardson); besides, he couldn't pretend he wouldn't enjoy Martin's reaction to losing his only blackmail material.  
Time to lance the boil, then.  
  
  
He took the opportunity to soften Martin up first, by responding with as much kindness as he could bear to express when the Captain divulged all about his lack of love-life (Douglas idly noted, once again, the lack of gender-specific pronouns) and humiliating true source of income; when Douglas finally overpowered old habit and confessed all, he was pleasantly surprised by Martin's stilted but genuine sympathy and tact, and all-in-all the experience was mostly painless.  
  
For a few minutes, the flight deck – and G-ERTI's interior in general – was relatively calm and non-antagonistic. This was somewhere between soothing and unsettling.  
  
Then Martin's watch gave itself away (possibly it was fed up with waiting for Martin to do so), and Carolyn suffered a temporary boredom-induced lapse of sanity just long enough for her to permit Arthur to play Charades, and soon the flight deck was filled with the glorious cacophony of four people trying to conduct two simultaneous and unrelated arguments. _Much_ better.

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea whether there's a canonical (well, Word Of Finnemore) reason why Helena cheated on Douglas. If I'm wrong, please let me know!
> 
> Douglas has always seemed, to me, to be an extremely intelligent man in desperate need of sufficient mental stimulation to keep him from going mad with boredom. Rather than solve crimes, he chooses to obtain this via a combination of complex and/or dubiously-legal schemes and word-games. This solution doesn't always suffice, hence why he turned to alcohol (the Seventy-Proof Solution?): it slowed down his mind, so he didn't need quite so much entertainment to keep him sane. But the booze had adverse consequences, so in the end he gave it up – which provided one of his current favourite pastimes: playing 'How Much Exposure To Alcohol And Social Drinkers Can I Withstand Without Falling Off The Wagon?'. So far, he's winning... 
> 
> Speaking of which: since even JF himself reckons that it seems out-of-style for Cabin Pressure to feature that old sitcom standby of “the thing everyone really cares about this week, which they've apparently been involved with for ages yet have never mentioned before and never will again”, I decided that the airfield pub probably wasn't as much of an institution as Douglas claimed. More likely, it was the result of a dare or a bored Karl or something like that.
> 
> I do wonder why, exactly, that franking machine HAD to be delivered to Paris not only on Douglas' daughter's birthday but at the time of her party (rather than a few hours earlier/later).  
> (“Johannesburg” has at least three plotholes, and this is only one of them (the others are:  
> 1) Madrid ATC sending them to an airfield with no engineer on staff, in response to their request for an emergency landing due to a mechanical fault, which is only thirty miles away from an airfield with an engineer (do they hate MJN/Martin from past experience? Maybe that put-upon ATC at Shanwick in “Boston” has friends in Madrid? PS Thanks for pointing this out go to someone on tumblr whose name I can't remember);  
> 2) Martin says that the baggage truck has no doors, but we hear its doors slamming repeatedly (no physical windows would make complete sense – perhaps Benedict flubbed the line and they didn't re-record for some reason? PS Thanks for pointing this one out go to super-transcriber Ariane DeVere.)  
> ... It's one of my favourite episodes anyway [blush]


End file.
